You Belong

You Belong.   Ephesians 2.11-22

Hello. 

From our place in time, we have the privilege of 2,000 years of Christian faith being defined, built upon, and refined.  And in the last 400 years, the Word of God has been translated, printed, and now disseminated throughout most of the world.  For those of us who live in freedom, we worship freely in faith traditions that have been handed down and modified in hundreds of different ways … but it wasn’t always so.  Paul writes: ( I have underlined several statements)

But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.   Ephesians 2.11-22, The Message

Before Jesus, mankind knew only laws and the keeping of them to get to God.  There was nothing but striving.  But Jesus tore down the walls of rule-keeping, (remember, observant Jews tried to keep 613 of them), and instead brought peace … peace with God and one another.  When we come to trust in Christ, we become part of the kingdom of God, citizens who belong forever—no longer strangers or aliens.  The men and women of God who came before built the foundations of Christianity, and God now uses us to build upon that foundation.  God has in mind a community of believers which God himself is meant to inhabit.

Heaven will be the ultimate community.  The church will be all it is meant to be, as seen in the gleam of God’s eye.  Oh, it won’t be compartmentalized or divided with men on one side, women on the other … or Catholics in one area, Episcopalians in another, and Baptists on the opposite side … there won’t be a section up front for one race, and in the back, for another. We will not be divided by language or custom or socioeconomics.  Once inside the twelve magnificent gates of pearl, all will ‘belong’.

But until then … you still ‘belong’.  And that’s important, because we all need a place we feel we belong … where we fit.  Where is yours?

Christine

 PastorWoman.com